


forever and never

by pxrsephoneofeden



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, Long-Term Relationship(s), Married Couple, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Realistic, Unhappy Ending, What Have I Done, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxrsephoneofeden/pseuds/pxrsephoneofeden
Summary: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is my comfort movie and since I cannot help myself I had to write angst for it. If anyone reads this, I can not tell you how or why it's here, but I hope you enjoy it.Mild trigger warning: Arguing, unhealthy relationships, and minor minor mention of injuries and alcohol consumption
Relationships: Willy Wonka/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	forever and never

**Author's Note:**

> you could judge me for writing this but you're here reading it

“ _ Excuse me, Miss? You dropped this on the way out of the plane.” _

_ Startled by the intrusion of her train of thought she turned around cautiously, standing before her was a boy of about seven or eight, holding what indeed looked to be her wallet. Her face flushed and she forced a warm smile as she saw the boy’s mother standing just feet away, watching her with the vigilance of a starving beast. _

_ She tilted her head with the smile, just as she did any other day at any moment she needed, her cheekbones curling into the modeled pose they’d been trained to do as cameras snapped at her at any angle Will would want them to be from his sketches of products and their packaging. She wondered if she removed her admittedly laughable large white sunglasses if the boy would recognize her from the heart shaped candy boxes in the airport grab-and-go stations near the food court. She secondly prayed that maybe he wouldn’t, she’d take her wallet, and continue on her scouting mission to scope out the winners of this scheme, dare she call it that to his face, of teaching the spoiling, cheating, and enabling parents of the world by baiting them with all the riches and magic she’d grown so tired of. _

_ She bent down, perched on her knees and calmly reached her hand out to take back her wallet, a silvery clutch adorned at the clasp with the signature calligraphy style “W” in 14 karot rose gold. _

_ “Thank you so much, sir!” She bit the inside of her cheek as the child’s inquisitive eyes widened. _

_ “Woah! Where are you from! You sound like those people from the down-town abbey!” She chuckled hard at his mispeach, noting her English accent hinted with the Russian drawl Will never let her live down whenever they’d first met and she called him ‘Vill”. The boy ran back to his mother who instinctively grabbed his hand, she stood and watched as his face lit up, explaining his encounter with a real life European, and she couldn’t help but smirk, a genuine one, at his naivety. This boy just met a billionaire and he likely wouldn’t have even cared had she not spoken the way she did. _

_ She hailed a cab, after spending what felt like an eternity in the bathroom attempting to train her brain to call this city she’d landed in “Atlanta” rather than her immediate assumption to pronounce it as, ‘Atalanta’. Will had called her four times, but she knew she wasn’t going to feel comfortable enough to answer until she reached the hotel, he was going to be angry, worried sick in his own paranoia that she wanted to travel herself to scope out the Beauregard mother-daughter duo that entranced her from his first tease of their story and reasoning for planting the ticket in their hands; Ambition, vanity, and unhinged arrogance drew her in more than anything, and she’d be damned if she stayed dormant and bored in that factory-turned home another day awaiting their arrival with the other families. _

_ She’d be lying if she said that Will wasn’t correct in telling her how dreamy she often became, unaware of hre surroundings when she became so entranced in her own mind. She’d scoff and mumble in response, “At least MY flashbacks aren’t violent.”, another week of the silent treatment followed, and the cycle began again when she’d finally wake up one morning with him beside her in the bed again. She barely remembered the drive, the check in at the hotel, or getting ready for the gala the Mayor of Atlanta organized to congratulate the gum-chewing preteen for her golden ticket findings. The darker, more cynical side of her personality she’d adopted from Will after all these years spoke mekely in her ear, urging her to tell Violet’s boasting mother she’d been selected individually by a team of unethical spying and observations of bad poor parenting, her special knack for always being the number one at anything competitive nothing more than a facade to her. _

_ The dress she’d bought and had shipped directly to the hotel, for reasons she’d obviously lied to Will about, guiltily, was nothing of what she wore in his presence. It was black, it fit her body almost like a second skin, and she’d vamped up the cosmetic attire she’d gotten so used to slapping pink powders and lipsticks on. _

_ She was tired of the arguments and the immature comments that she was meant to be soft and pretty, that the modern and bold looks of other women in the spotlight didn’t suit her, he loved her for the pink and yellow adorned girl with visible freckles and butterfly clips in her hair, she didn’t need to look like she was conquering a small village. _

_ She’d swallow hard, rolling her eyes and suddenly hate whatever dark clothing item she’d been so foolish as to try to live peacefully in, wishing she’d get the nerve to ask why a grown man still wanted his wife to look like the half-grown basically starving Russian girl that wandered onto cherry-street in London at just the right moment to bump into him. She never grew a spine as long as that commont would hold though. _

_ It was true, she loved pink, she’d loved pink at her earliest memories, a cold december morning in Arkhangelsk, the smells from the bakery tempting her hungry stomach, and the frazzled mahogany eyes of her tired mother watched as she began sniffling, red nosed and , ripping at her untamed mane of caramel hair, begging her mother to buy her the wispy baby pink coat in the store window she knew, even as a toddler, they’d never afford. Gazing over at the bed, looking down at the powdery pink mink coat he’d bought for her the day after they got married in that equally as cold courthouse in Moscow, she grimaced at herself in the mirror ahead of her, getting that same feeling of self-hatred forever even wishing to get petty revenge for banning anything darker than a pastel from her knowledge of what makes her ‘pretty’ _

_ - _

“You have to talk to me eventually, today’s the big day!” she defeatedly huffed as he paced all around their bedroom, panicked at the realization that he’d pulled off the biggest scam of the century, the plot to teach four bratty children and their neglectful parents of integrity and award one misfortune kid a chance at riches. How ironic, she thought silently as he ignored her continuously for not returning his calls until after the gala ended. Her drunken speech became apparent to him on the phone.

“You expect me to trust you after that display, what if you’d been kidnapped!”

“My God, Will, I’m a grown woman, I had a few drinks with Priyanka Pondercherry because I needed a fucking friend, and god knows I had to smooth over what you did with that castle you built them! Hell, I may be younger than you but I’m not an idiot!”

“I never said you were! I-”

“Save it. Go take your meds and get outside, they’re standing out there waiting. And you better have checked those puppets! They haven;t been used since we shut off the factory and they’re gonna catch on fire!”

“Cherry, they’re not gonna catch on fire, Just forgive me-”

“Stop calling me that and expecting me to just melt away at you. I’m not your product, Will, I’m your wife.”

She hated snapping at him, she truly did, as unbelievable as that display made it, but she knew good and well it was all his father ever did to him, and she never wanted to make him feel that way again. She walked herself over to the security video room, rolling her eyes at how many cameras he’d had installed everywhere, but thankful she could watch his cringey display as he attempted to make a first impression on the parents he was supposedly un-knowledgeable about. It was a fast paced and poorly planned ruse, sure, but he was making it so obvious he was hiding something up his velvet sleeves she needed a cigarette. Or a pack.

Under the desk that sat in position to watch the cameras she felt her foot hit a wrapper of some sorts. She knew he get a stick up his ass is no one picked it up, leaving everything not perfectly immaculate as he wished the world could be, so she bent down and picked it up, inspecting it between her fingers and pulling it up to be greeted by a cartoonist impression of her own face, flashing that angelic fake smile she’d given the boy at the airport.

She ripped the wrapper to shreds and grabbed at the edges of her hair, yanking the temples slightly and feeling herself revert back to that starving, Russian immigrant girl desperate for money, for love, and for attention. She remembered it clear as day, the fate-caused morning her alter-ego came to be. The then shorter haired, much more charming Will awaited her arrival to the shop. Coins bouncing in the pockets of her gingham, scratchy, homemade dress she’d finally learned to sew herself at nineteen. 

_ She never thought she’d be used to the cars passing by her on the streets. London was much more hectic and scary than Arkhangelsk, but she was ever thankful she ran away from the poverty her sickly mother was leaving her and her siblings behind with. She bit her lip and fiddled with the locket around her neck, the fake gold chipping around the tiny picture of her baby sister she promised God every night she’d come back to save eventually once she’d gotten on her feet. _

_ Will promised her she wouldn’t regret this, and whatever feelings she didn’t know for sure she was beginning to have for the eclectic multi-millionaire that had grown so fond of her and her shopping habits, she buried them deep in her lungs until the moment she reached the bright pink and red candy shop on Cherry Street. The original, now a mere memory to most as there were over 200 exactly like it all across the world. _

_ She met the famously secretive and odd genius by absolute coincidence. She’d made it to England just days prior, leaving nothing in her trail but a haphazardly written note and a promise that she’d be better than the near homeless and hopeless family she’d felt swallowed her whole since her mother found new, pharmaceutical, ways to cope with the inescapable poorness that kept them in a two bedroom home with seven people in need of a place to sleep. She still felt as though sometimes she could see Meadow, the youngest of the clan trotting alongside her, her chubby infant legs struggling to keep up with her ganglyness, even after she stepped off the train with nothing but a locket of the sweet girl’s face to keep her company. _

_ The admittedly horrid apartment search turned her desperate, and hungrier than ever. Reckless, and starving, she wandered to the neon and giddy street dubbed “Cherry” in search of handouts as embarrassing as it may have been, and her wild nest of sun-shining red hair blocked her peripheral view at the perfectly imperfect moment to absolutely whip into the face of a man standing outside his very own shop. _

_ An apologetic conversation led to an introduction to a man that she now hates to say changed the course of her life forever. She began coming by more and more once she settled on a disgustingly vile apartment to live, and as guilty as it made her feel, this older man had begun to take her problems away one by one. _

_ She hated her landlord, so he bought her a nice apartment, she was hungry so he gave her a job at his shop and a credit card, she was lonely so he left his sanctuary of solitude just to make sure someone talked to her that day. As strange and concerningly socially unaware as he could be, everything she had to be thankful for happened once he entered her life and by God if it didn;t make her wanna fall in love with him. _

_ “Vill? Where are you?” The shop was unusually bleak and void of any life. The brightly colored edible assortments decorating the walls seemed to drip onto the floor. _

_ “Haha, When will you ever learn how to speak correctly, Cherylynn?” _

_ She jumped in place as the man she carelessly forgot had a tendency to move in silence approached her. _

_ “Vhat did you bring me down here for, where is everyone? Is the shop closing?” She cocked her head to the side and he gave her a giggling smile. The morning light shining through the meticulously intricate stained glass of the shop window made his deep brown eyes appear a royal purple. She pursed her lips together and felt her arm wander back up to her locket. _

_ “You’re my new ploy.” _

_ “I beg your pardon, Vill?”  _

_ “Cherylynn, say you name out loud, and think of it as hard as you possibly can. Then tell me what you think is the biggest marketing strategy there is in the world!” _

_ She was taken aback, he was acting strange, more so than his usual quirks and rambling speeches on the importance of the things she saw as almost insignificant. She swallowed hard and answered him after seconds of uncomfortable silence. _

_ “Cherylynn Valencia?” She spoke her name with the Russian flare it was rightly said with, he rolled his eyes and turned back to grab a notebook and a polaroid camera from the counter behind them. _

_ “Look at this-” He shoved the notebook in her hand and when she opened it, cartoon images of pinup girls had been partially sketched out, she furrowed her brows up at him in more confusion. _

_ “Vill, I’m still not following this. What are you asking of me?” She noted for a split second the first time her accent dropped and it saddened her ever so slightly. Nowadays she becomes pained at the reminder of what she used to sound like when she first immigrated. _

_ “As of today it is January 4th. Meaning I am a month and a half late on my Valentine's Day product outlines because I’m fruitfully stuck on the concept I visualized weeks ago, and then it hit me. It was you! You’re my idea!” _

_ “Excuse me?” _

_ “Cheryl, You are absolutely beautiful! You’re the perfect model for a Valentine’s day character! I want to sell your image on my products because even if people don’t want a candy bar, they want a beautiful woman!” _

_ She scoffed at him and suddenly every story she’d ever heard of the older man taking advantage of the young girl came into light. She wanted to run, and her face must’ve had hesitation written all across it because he threw his hands up in innocence. _

_ “I’m not selling you in a- In a creepy sense, I want to photograph you and use your image as inspiration for a character I’m going to name ‘Cherry Valentine’. No one has to know it’s you I just- You’re the only person that gives me so much inspiration to make these things happen! If you’d allow me to take your photo, maybe give you the whole pinup makeover, In an innocent way of course! We could sell millions worth of candy to these people.” _

_ She struggled to find the words to express everything she thought. No one ever made her feel as perfect for something as that frantic speech had tried to persuade her to think. She chewed at the inside of her mouth and stared back into his hypnotizing glare. _

_ “What do you need me to do?” _

_ His face lit up in delight as she agreed and she ran into the back room of the shop, she let out a hard laugh, in response, and as a comfort to herself. Looking back at that naive girl, she ponders if it ever occurred to her how many of those illustrations of her he’d sell. How many holidays ‘Cherry Valentine’ would inevitably branch off into and just how many photographs he’d take of her every single year. _

_ Until the year he just stopped. _

She huffed out like a small child as her shredded wrapper portrait floated it’s way into the garbage can. This one was one of the original designs from all those years ago. Her hair was drawn to be in the traditional victory curls and she was adorned with a teal fifties style dress covered in cherries accordingly. Her overly happy smile, her young lolita face, and the burning memory of the intimacy that occurred after that picture made her chest feel tight. Every time she walked past a store,every time she saw that falsified recreation of one of the hundreds of different pictures he’d taken of her reminded her of what she truly was to him, an object to profit off of.

She wanted to hate him, she did, but she could never bring herself to leave. She knew deep down she didn’t want to. She was hopelessly devoted to a man who had undeniably lost his mind, so agoraphobic and scared of the world around him he’d been ravished by self-centeredness and regressed to this isolative state. She got angry wherever she brushed her hair, did her makeup, wore a light colored outfit, just to get the same energy and praise she used to get as free as the air she breathed, but some days, even that felt like it came at a price.

_ Two years after the factory shut down to the public they hit the most cold and endless void in the relationship, his paranoia and distrust making her feel as though she were a kidnapping victim. Reverse Stockholm syndrome rippled in waves from her brain, down her spine, and into every blood vessel in her body as he began to grow less and less interested in her and more invested in protecting his business and his inventions, leaving his mental health and her emotional stability gone. She broke her vow of silence and need for attention from the man who’d once buy her the moon if he could the day she decided to purge her disgusting pink and white closet, She found her very own golden ticket, and she planned her machination. The, now faded and quite dusty, teal dress with the cherries printed on it, some crooked and peeling away from the cheap quality she barely afford back in the day. _

_ She meticulously sat and painted her face, she was only twenty nine but after a decade of staring into the consistently teenage fantasy face of ‘Cherry Valentine’ she constantly wondered now if her progression into later adulthood was what was keeping him away from her, as sickening as the thought made her. She was proud of the look she’d created, she snickered as she walked down the dimly lit hallways of the top floor of the factory, the space they called their home. She knocked lightly three times melodically on the office door he’d been locking himself away in for nearly two whole years. _

_ “Come in, but I’m busy.” _

_ “It’s me, Will. Uh- Can we talk for a second?” _

_ He studied her as she took slow steps to the chair opposing his desk, she flashed her practiced smile and he returned it with an equal as fake one. She got a gut feeling to run, she knew him, she knew his real smile, his real thoughts, he wasn’t happy with her little plan already. _

_ “You know what day it is Will?” _

_ “No, my little cherry, I do not know what the date is, I couldn’t be concerned. Actually.” _

_ She gulped and swallowed her pride evermore. _

_ “It’s January 4th.” _

_ “And?” _

_ “And that means nothing to you, nothing we usually do on January 4th. Nothing that has to do with Valentine’s day and certain character-based products you love to draw things up for?” _

_ “No, nothing that matters anymore.” _

_ That last line hit her like a punch to the lower intestines. She forced a shaky smile and picked up the edges of her skirt, dropping them dramatically as she stood. Her voice was trembling and her eyes welled in traitorous tears. She felt weak and like she was sling a game. _

_ “Great. Ok, I’ll see you at dinner then.” _

She continued her peanut gallery viewing of the tour until they reached the fountain room, she could hardly stand it as he made inappropriately timed jokes about cannibalism as funny as she may have found them. Every once and a while as the hyperactive children ran crazed and overwhelmed by the magnificent edible room he’d spent so much time and money she felt could’ve been more cleverly invested, she catches him gazing into one of the many carefully hidden cameras, like he knew where she was, what she was doing, because he knew her so very well.

She swiftly got up and shuffled along the carpeted floor, looking down, embarrassedly. She wanted no part of this plot, this madman's plan to lure bad parents into a trap, but here she was, trekking down the marron carpets to the humongous room, but to stand by the side of her husband now that he’s decided she does in fact need her with him.

She strolled on the soft, gummy texturized ‘grass’ beneath her feet, amazed at how quickly he’d been able to come up with such a surface that could support a building, look like a fresh cut lawn, and somehow taste like a candied apple, but regrettably, it’s one of the things that kept her where she stood today.

Violet’s mother stared her down as she picked up the pace once she spotted him, she wondered suddenly if she’d recognize her from the gala and they’d all be under investigation, but she felt a wave of strange relief as the rest of the parents followed suit in watching her like lions observing a wounded elk, unsure of whether to pounce or let her meet her own fate as id.

“There you are!” He turned around, his persona an exact opposite of what he was in their bedroom just an hour before, and she could vividly imagine the two pills she’d laid out for him still resting on the bathroom counter.

Battles picked for separate occasions, she repeated in a mantra as he began guiding her towards the emerging swarm of parents and children observing an Oompa Loompa as if they’d never seen a pygmy or a dwarf before.

“It’s going so well, I mean, Wow! This is gonna be perfect-” HE wrapped an arm around her significantly short shoulders, whipping his head around to look at the tube collecting chocolate from the flowing ‘river’. She grimaced and nodded her head in agreement. She prayed to any higher power that could listen that the chubby german boy left unharmed as his timed decoy tube began to move towards the trap laid out for Augustus.

The English girl pointed and mocked the Oompa Loompa as Mrs. Beauregard turned around to continue her stare down of Cheryl, only this time, it was much more obvious as she was merely a couple of feet from her.

“Um, Mr. Wonka… If I may ask-”

“Who’s she?” Mike Teevee interrupted the broady mother much to her dismay as he looked Cheryl up and down, sending rushes of self-consciousness through her.

“My apologies, dear children, for not mentioning her sooner! I didn’t think she’d be joining the tour today as she’s much more of the diplomatic type for this factory-” She forgave this subtle jab to her combative nature for its excellent timing, but he wasn’t in the clear yet. “This is my wife, Cherylynn.”

The parents looked at her, some confused, others just downright apologetic and she put back a snicker, often forgetting how off-putting his nature came across to the general public at any given moment. The skinny, predetermined winner, Charlie, and his elderly escort offered her a genuinely welcoming smile, and it finally clicked as to why he chose them for something, apart from the poverty of course.

She allowed herself to fall into her dreamy ignorance as the candy room tour continued. She wasn’t snapped out of it until Mrs.Gloop let out a screech that let her know his bait had been taken by Augustus. The Oompa Loompas began their ridiculous song of his demise and her head began to spin.

After the ruckus and absolute terror that spread across the faces of the guests, she was thankful to arrive at what she dubbed in her mind as the “Boat scene”. Of course Will would pick the back seat by the Bucket duo in his own lack of discreet favoritism, leaving her very little room to where she was essentially pressed all the way against his side to fit on the ride with them. She saw Violet’s mother stare her down once more, and the realization hit her across the face in a hot flush. They were the same. Mrs. Beauregard studied her frilly attire, her painted face just as she studied her’s respectively. She gave the quickest, most faint look of understanding and Cheryl felt her face contrast into a sighing look of gratitude, of seeness.

Will looked down at her as she sharply exhaled.

With all the weight of her lack of appreciation, her anger, her regret. She smiled, a signature ‘Cherry Valentine’ photograph in front of him, and hugged his arm as the boat began to move.


End file.
